Gender Spectrum offers training for professionals in the medical and mental health fields, tailored for your specific needs and designed to give you the tools you need for your work with children, youth and families.

Our trainings give you valuable information on gender that will inform your work with all of your patients and help you become more sensitive and responsive to transgender and gender-expansive youth. We honor the diversity of your community and pay particular attention to the specific needs of racial, ethnic and cultural communities. In all of our work, we help you to develop specific strategies for action and methods of evaluating the outcomes for children, youth and families, and we honor the diversity of your community and pay particular attention to the specific needs of racial, ethnic and cultural communities.

Our trainings provide:

A basic understanding of gender identity development.

An overview of appropriate practices and policies to ensure equitable care for gender-expansive and transgender young people.

Our training for mental health professionals generally begins with our introduction “Foundations of Gender-Inclusive Counseling Practices.” This two-session training is designed to establish basic understandings of gender diversity and approaches for applying them to professional practice.

Through direct presentation, video clips of youth and others talking about gender, and group reflection and discussion, this workshop takes participants through a review of basic gender concepts and terminology. With this solid background in place, the session describes concrete methods for applying the lens of gender diversity to counseling practices.

The workshops are live, interactive online trainings in two segments - the two components can be done in a single session or as separate pieces, but they are not offered as stand alone trainings. The components are:

Dimensions of Gender

In this 75 minute session you will learn:

Presentation of key terminology and concepts related to gender

Reflection on personal beliefs and experiences with gender

Perspectives from youth and caregivers about gender

Introduction to Principles of Gender Affirmative Care

Gender Inclusive Counseling Practices in Action

This 60 minute session builds on understanding of basic concepts of gender and applies them to counseling and institutional practices:

Overview of data about family affirmation and its relation to health and wellbeing outcomes for transgender and other gender-expansive youth

Discussion of strategies related to supporting transgender and other gender-expansive youth in various contexts, including schools, at home and within their communities

Also included in this program of professional development is a set of articles, resources and tools for implementing various strategies in your work with youth and caregivers.

Medical Professionals: Foundations of Affirmative Care

The focus of this session is on how medical and health care providers can recognize and support a young patient’s evolving gender development and provide affirmative care.

The training begins with establishing a solid foundation of gender literacy, including ways in which gender norms are shifting as young people become more flexible in their thinking about this core aspect of self. We also briefly explore research in two areas: the critical role that caregiver behaviors play in the health and well-being of gender-expansive children, and the experiences of many transgender and gender-expansive individuals in medical care settings. We conclude with an examination of the ways in which health care providers can establish welcoming and gender-inclusive medical environments.

Participants will leave this session able to:

Define and use terms and concepts related to gender diversity

Communicate perspectives and experiences of gender-expansive children and the families who are raising them

Describe experiences of transgender and other gender-expansive individuals in medical settings Identify the components of a gender-inclusive medical setting

Learn More and Request a Training

We host regular teleconference information sessions where you can learn more about our professional development services. These Training Q&A calls give us a chance to share information about our work and give you a chance to ask questions related to your specific needs. Click below to get the schedule and join a call. You can also contact us for more information at [email protected].

We maintain a strict level of privacy about our work with your group. Unless you wish to promote our collaboration, we will not publish nor discuss it publicly. All of our work together is done confidentially.